John Anderson Hunt was born July 10, 1864 on the family farm in Johnson County, Arkansas. He was the 5th child of John Austin Hunt and Amanda Jane Caudell Hunt. Because an older brother had died as an infant, John became the eldest son in the family.
During the Civil War, while his father was serving in the Union army at Little Rock, a message was delivered by his commanding officer which read in part: "... the family of John Hunt, Private Co. A, 2nd Arkansas Infantry is in a destitute condition, having been robbed and burned out by the guerrillas in Johnson County, Arkansas." This occurred only two months before the birth of John A. Hunt.
John A. Hunt was 5 years old when the family moved from Johnson County to southwestern Sebastian County in 1871. From that time, family members operated farms and businesses in the Choctaw Nation of Indian Territory, as well as in Sebastian County. Little is known of family history for the next 25 years. However, by riding horseback to and from Indian Territory to the meeting house at the Arkansas community of West Harmony, John A. Hunt completed three grades of schooling.
In 1895, when he was twenty nine years old, John Anderson Hunt married Mary Catherine Cook at Wister, Indian Territory, and they were to have two children, one of whom died as an infant. Also in 1895 they moved with a large contingent of the Hunt family from LeFlore County to Hartshorne in Pittsburg County, Indian Territory. At that place family members became church and civic leaders, law officers and businessmen, and many of the family units purchased burial plots in Elmwood Cemetery.
In Hartshorne, John A. Hunt was elected city marshal 1901 and then in 1902 was appointed deputy U.S. marshal of the Central District of the Choctaw Nation where he served until statehood in Fall 1907. In Hartshorne he also established and operated a successful business for saddles, harness, and horse-drawn vehicles, and he was a church leader who served as Moderator of the Short Mountain Baptist Association.
After statehood, he served a term as justice of the peace in Hartshorne before moving his family back to LeFlore County, Oklahoma. In LeFlore County, he again served as deputy U.S. marshal while operating sawmills and lumberyards. He also served as city marshal of Poteau. In 1921-22 he served one term as Sheriff of LeFlore County, during which time a tragic epidemic of smallpox at Poteau caused the death of a great number of people, including other law officers and his wife Katherine.
John Anderson Hunt married a second time to Grace Estelle Yearwood, and they were to have nine children, one of whom died as a child. In succeeding years John A. Hunt formed a company to drill for oil in Sequoyah County. He then returned to LeFlore County where he did farming at Page, followed by hotel management in Talihina. Somehow the family survived the Great Depression, and all the children completed their schooling at Talihina.
In Talihina, John A. Hunt served as a city police officer in 1936 prior to being elected justice of the peace, an office he held until his retirement in 1949 at age 85. He died of natural causes in 1951 at age 87.